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Wednesday, 17 May 2017

KP Repost: Half as Long and Twice as Dull - The ACT Party and David Seymour

This is the post that probably got me in the second most amount of trouble over on my short run at KP, the first being my post about how it was OK to vote for Donald Trump (and if that subject gets you worked up I suggest parking your jets and going to read it first (which can be found here) before getting taken in by its title.

But back to the subject at hand; ACT.

At this time ACT exists only because National wants it to though its gifting of the Epsom electorate in Auckland. Its policies are discredited and unpopular, its voter base gone, its polling at Zero or so well below the margin of error to actually be zero and lacking in any real visioon or leadership.

And if things get tight this election then that good will may not remain as National seeks to take Epsom for itself.

Which in effect makes David Seymour NZ's highest paid beneficiary as ACT is essentially a make work scheme for the politically unemployed.

So why keep ACT around, there are several reason why National does this but my three are that a) National needs to keep at least one party further to the right than it to enable its centrist disguise to remain effective and b) ACT is a useful sounding board for the more free market of its ideas and c) there is enough rabid right wing, free market, jihadi's in National that the party retains a measure of sympathy for its deformed little brother.

But despite all of this I don't mind Seymour as a person, he appears intelligent, and can speak well and seems to genuinely believe in his cause so its a shame that his cause is such a political and economic turd and no amount of sprinkles can fix that.

If there was a time when ACT was a genuine political party, those days are
past. In the late 90s and early 2000s ACT could indeed claim to be a such a
thing as it polled respectably and had yet to be tainted by the scandals,
squabbling and power struggles which have now left it dead in the polls and
relevant only because the Auckland electorate of Epsom has developed a rather
strange fetish for it.

The fact that the party has visibly withered in the last decade is almost
entirely down to its own deceitful actions and the fact that it’s championing
of the neo-liberal agenda and as a mouthpiece for the ultra-rich and corporate
entities has gone from distasteful to downright loathsome.

The question that always interested me was in trying to figure out if ACT
really believed the gibberish it was spouting or if they were just happy being
mouthpieces for one of the most vile ideologies of our time; that of a happy
return to feudalism under corporate masters rather than blue bloods.

In the 90s the party happily spouted Business Roundtable platitudes while
supporting the National government but it also could claim some degree of moral
ground under “perk buster” Rodney Hide (who was later busted for abusing the
very same system of parliamentary perks and privilege that he had
hypocritically been railing against) and having some theoretical pedigree by
claiming it was championing individual rights and freedoms.

Today it polls about as popular as a party of pedophiles and its
theoretical and political base is worm ridden and compromised (in fact given it
currently polls around the 1% mark I see no irony in recognizing the fact that
it is has always represented the interests of the 1%). But between 1996 and
2002 it rode high in the polls as part of those heady days of early MMP with a
respectable 7%.

The fact that that most of that 7% could be ascribed to the more right
wing elements of the National party fleeing in the wake of Nationals dismal
results in 1999 and 2002 may have escaped ACT’s attention but despite these
high poll results it was never a part of the Labour Government under Helen
Clark between 1999 and 2008 (I wonder why?).

But at its simplest ACT was built and commissioned as a vehicle for those
who wanted to continue to advance the free market ideology of the 80s into the
90s and beyond.

If my previous analysis of the big four political parties had looked at
the failures of each party under the headings of: the party itself (Labour);
its individual members (National); personal political advancement (NZ First)
and selling out its core values (the Greens: no they haven’t done this yet but
that’s what my post about them was warning against) then my analysis of ACT is
a combination of all of the above.

The grim state of the party is a warning to all others in the NZ political
sandbox of what happens to those who abandon all morality for greed by peddling
themselves to clearly self-serving ideologies that reject even the basic
tenants of community and commons.

More technically ACT is clear evidence of what happens when a political
party is clearly serving a vested interest and staffed with a rouges gallery of
goons and goombahs in the best traditions of the SA.

Yes that’s right (no pun intended), ACT were to be the brown shirts of
right-wing NZ revolution (an odious tradition continued today by bloggers like
Cameron Slater over on the Whale Oil), a vanguard of the free market and like
the SA are self-destructing in a queasy orgy of criminal and corrupt behavior
(although no night of the long knives for ACT, yet).

It’s worth examining some of the histories of the specters that have made
up the party to get a better picture of what exactly went wrong and why the
party is no longer a viable entity.

First things first there was Rodger Douglas. In being a key figure in
forming a political party the message was crystal clear of what ACT stood for.
If you liked the regulatory and free market revolution that his reforms had
created for NZ then this was the party for you. Most of the electorate was not
a fan but a sizable minority (6%) did vote for the party in 1996 and in part
that was on the perceived value of the firm economic policy that ACT seemed to
be advocating and the supposed benefits it brought.

In 1996 Douglas was no longer in charge of the economy but with his
disciple Ruth Richardson (a known member of the Mont Perlin Society: The John
Birch society for accountants) still keeping the ovens going (under a
continuation of Rogernomics now termed “Ruthanasia”) his reforms continued and
helped to make 1990s NZ a grim and bleak place to live.

With Labour back in government in 1999 it was clear that ACT was not going
to be getting a seat at the table and Douglas, never keen on Hides leadership
stepped away from the party in 2004 as ACT languished in opposition for most of
the decade.

Then in 2008 Douglas, along with Heather Roy, staged a failed coup attempt
on Rodney Hide, who survived due to the timely intervention of John Key.
Douglas started to fade after this time as several bills he tried to introduce
into parliament failed in the house and in 2011 he called it quits.

His legacy as the architect of so much pain and misery is reflected in
things like the growing wealth and inequality gaps, the scandal of poor and hungry
children in NZ and a merchant banker (John Key) as PM.

Douglas is the reason why the argument that ACT sold its soul to sing for
the devil is false. ACT (and Douglas) never had any soul to begin with; they
were catamites from the start and an open vehicle for the free-market agenda
that has been exploited by a grubby few to almost everyone’s disadvantage.

But Douglas is the just the first of many who would make the party look
like the criminal rabble it was rapidly turning into and leave it as the soulless
husk it is today.

Stalwart party members like John Banks (accused of submitting false
electoral returns, shilling for Kim Dotcom and a dangerous level of religious
zealotry among his numerous misdeeds); Donna Awatere Huata (tried, sentenced
and jailed for fraud); David Garret (stealing the identity of a dead child in
an attempt to get a false passport); Rodney Hide (caught abusing the very perks
he had built his reputation on); Heather Roy and Ken Shirley (shilling for big
pharma); Deborah Coddington (anti-Asian Immigration) and Hillary Calvert (who
makes the list for her delightful quote “we care about people ahead of silly
little chickens”) have been the storm troopers of right wing ideology and
policy, who have helped turn ACT into the ship of fools that it is but
also a refuge for misfits, rejects and political mercenaries of all stripes
(Don Brash).

If it was just its cast of ugly criminal characters alone then ACT would
be no worse than National with its similar scum pool of human misdemeanors but ACT
also fails on the Policy front, ala Labour, but much much worse.

On casual perusal, ACT’s policy portfolio seems to have some merit with
its claims of freedom and lower taxes for all but as with all policy the devil
is in the details and with further reading, as well as knowing ACT’s pedigree
and track record, it’s easy to locate the keywords and decipher their actual
meaning.

ACT adheres to the political equivalent of creationism, that of small
government; low taxes and private provision of public services (charter
schools, Serco run prisons (and look how well those turned out), asset sales and letting the kind and benevolent
market take care of things).

ACT’s definition of “core functions” of government ignores the reality
that is the highly complex society that we live in and imagines that market
functions would be able to contain the anarchy that the market itself has been
shown to create (booms, busts, bubbles, cartels, tax havens, corruption,
nepotism, market manipulation, offshore trusts and growing wealth and
inequality).

At its center ACT’s intellectual pedigree, albeit diluted and watered
down, is no worse than the intellectual foundations on which other parties sit,
but unlike National and Labour, which have simply let their policy bases fade
away in favor of craven appeals to the policy melting pot of “the middle
ground”, ACT’s is, and has always been, in the service of those who seek
appealing theoretical foundations on which to base their dubious actions.

ACT’s foundations lie in Friedrich Hayek and the Mont Perlin society and
more directly the NZ Business Roundtable (now dubbed the New Zealand
Initiative). Hayek’s arguments against collectivization were an intense part of
my undergrad study in political theory and his was, like many other thinkers, a
clear and conscious reaction to the tumult of the first half of the 20th
century by attempting to provide solutions to those times problems.

As a political theory this is fine (although I tended to favor the
position taken by Polanyi) but its use as a smokescreen for actions by others
with agendas which do not really align with the theory they are trumpeting is
nothing more than intellectual window dressing for the traveling snake oil show
that has been neo-liberalism and its use by global elites to dismantle any organization or structure which hampers their pursuit of profit and power.

Reading through chunks of policy statements give the impression that ACT
is obsessed with saving “the children”, really hates big government and that
lower taxes are the answer to many issues but one also can find references to
“ACTs advisers”; a distaste for beneficiaries, the treaty of Waitangi, the RMA;
and a host of neo-liberal buzzwords like “signalling”, “choice” and
“potential”.

The sum of all of this is that the parties’ policy prescriptions sound
wonderfully empowering and harmless until you realize that these prescriptions
have already been enacted around the world and we have been living in the
“utopia” promised to us by the smooth talking acolytes of small government and
less taxes.

I could go on forever here in pointing out the flaws in these overly
elaborate theories which have never been, and never will, be honestly enacted
but the point is clear. The message being preached has failed, it’s been tried
and it failed, the desperate cries of “more of the same”, by ACT and National,
to solve the problems previously created by “more of the same” now sound like
doom cultists chanting.

But what about the current leadership, what about ACT’s philosopher-king
David Seymour and his role as free-market mouthpiece?

At first Seymour seems to be a new face for the party but once you dig
into his background his links to conservative think tanks, including one which
helped shape Stephen Harper’s right wing paradise in Canada (before the
inevitable backlash kicked in), it becomes clear and you figure out that
someone (read what painfully passes for ACTs brain trust) has been seeking to
emulate the safe, white, suit and tie, clean shaven, middle aged male look (ala
Key, Cameron, Bush Jnr, Blair et al) but not quite managed to get the facial
features right on the identikit robot they ordered from conservatives’R’us.

And with the ACT party webpage now resembling a personal blog (with what
appear to be self-written press releases by Seymour about Seymour all over the
main page) and his face repeatedly staring back at you with each new post I
find myself wondering. His opinions, while few and far between in the press,
have given no indication that he has deviated from the party line but perhaps,
just perhaps, he realizes its a dead ship he is now captaining and has plans to
try and steer it into a safe port for rest and refit.

The odds of that happening rest entirely on Epsom deciding to retain any
party candidate as their representative in parliament. Personally If I was
Labours campaign manager I would be marshaling forces to get Seymour and Act
out of Epsom at all costs even (this could also apply to Peter Dunne in Ohariu)
to the point of getting voters to vote National (something that happened in the
last election anyway when tactical voting chopped ACTs lead to 6% over
National).

Seymour has none of the appeal of Key, personality of Winston or moral
integrity of the Greens. It’s almost like he has no soul (a double possibility
given his intellectual and political backgrounds) and I will be watching Epsom
2017 with great interest as if ACT loose their seat then its dead and buried
and all the grubby refuse that is the party will be swept away.

ACT, unlike Labour and National, does not have a historical background to
fall back on when its actions in the present taint it; nor does it have the
charisma and appeal of someone like Winston to work their mojo for the crowds;
also it does not have any moral stance to support its positions and arguments
(ala the Greens) and protect it from criticism.

ACT has been around just over 20 years and its life is almost over. Truly
the flame that burnt as half as long was twice as dull.

16 comments:

With an election looming these posts are helping to highlight the pros and cons of each party and its policies etc and because there have been no major changes between when I wrote them and now I am being a bit lazy by putting them up as is but with the in red preface to note any possible changes.

So they could also be a compare and contrast between now and then.

And as I am a one man band they do provide some filler when I am too busy with work or other things to get a post out regularly (as is the case this week).

Also, just noting that I don't always notice posts when they come up as "anonymous" simply because I sometimes mistake them for the spam I get so I encourage you to post under a name (fake or real) so I can tell if you are you or not a spambot.

Aha! A detractor; or are you simply not not happy with the state of the system in NZ.

I sense your not happy with what I write.

But I am open to constructive criticism or feedback so feel free to help improve the quality of this blog but be warned if your trolling for fun that is ok but I do have a tendency to troll back in such situations.

I have a rather more sympathetic view of David Seymour. For starters, he is one of the few Members of Parliament who is not directly benefiting from the plight of those New Zealanders who can no longer afford to buy or even rent a home in their own country. He does not, it appears, speculate in property, or augment his income from residential rents, as does virtually every other politician of right, left and centre. I suspect that is because he has a genuinely (albeit naively) idealistic concept of capitalism as a productive, rather than merely rapacious, economic system.A topic request: Can you give us the lowdown on Peter Thiel, his path to New Zealand citizenship and his relations with the New Zealand government?

Hi Geoff: Sheev probably is right in that I cant offer any particular insight into Theil based on my time at INZ but I do think looking at Theil/Palantir (his company) and the NZ intelligence community might be something interesting.

Also I agree that Seymour appears genuine in his political/economic beliefs and that is an asset to him as a politician but as they are such fringe beliefs with such harsh prescriptions they work against him, specially when ACT has such a bad history.

EA may have no particular insight into Peter Thiel (who does?), but he has a curious mind and a keen intellect that may qualify him to ask the right questions and do the necessary research. He also reveals in his brief response that he knows the kind of questions that need to be asked about Peter Thiel. That is a good start. I doubt that anyone in the mainstream media or even our vaunted "investigative journalists" would want (or dare) to enter into such an inquiry whereas at least EA has not given an unqualified "No" in answer to my request, so let's wait and see if he can come up with anything.

I admit my spelling is a bit sloppy (I only graduated because of the spellchecker on Word) but lets not go overboard here as bad spelling just means I am a bad speller (wait is that a word?), Hmm spellchecker says so, so lets go with it.

Anyway there is a surprising amount of stuff out there on Thiel that I pulled up with just a simple google search so I think there is enough to make a post out of it, some if it comes from the media inside NZ some of it outside, some of it seems standard stuff and a few bits seem just downright weird.

Spelling may be important to small minds like mine, but some of the greatest intellects of the western world have been atrocious spellers. Logic matters, and content in general matters. "Good" spelling is just one of those social graces. I look forward to reading an interesting account of Peter Thiel, however EA likes to spell the name.

Thing is, E.A. is not a bad speller generally. He tends to get personal names wrong. (Clarke, Theil, etc etc). So I think this is not just poor spelling, it's ignorance. (He also praised 'Clarke' for her non-existent tenure as Foreign Minister, for example)

Itsa me!

Political pyromaniac; born again democrat; satirical connotator; fascist anarchist; relaxed conservative; focused liberal; consumer of truth, witch-hunter general of lies and putter of the praxis into perfect!